Great New Year's Eve 5K Review

I have a love hate relationship with the Great New Year’s Eve 5K race held annually in Stow, Ohio.   Being that this race is just down the street from my house and held on my birthday make it hard for me not to compete in this race.  I also like the idea of ending the year with one last race.   The hate part of this race for me is that the weather conditions are typically horrible and the course is very difficult challenging runners with hill after hill.

This year the weather conditions were threatening rain but cleared up right before the start making for better than normal conidiations for this race.  The temperature was in the 40’s with some decent wind gusts but overall not too bad.
I had been training for this race the last couple of weeks by getting some miles in on the actual course to familiarize myself with every hill in order to come up with a race day strategy.  I felt fairly confident and prepared for the race.
Unfortunately my race didn’t go especially how I would have liked. For some reason I just wasn’t feeling it and couldn’t get to my usual pace. My lower back tightened up a few hours before the race and is very tight now so maybe that had something to do with it.   I  had a decent first mile at a 7:17 mile pace, but then slowed down from there.  Each mile I lost more time on the hills.   I tried to make a late push in the last half mile but it was a little too late to make up any real time.   In any case I still managed to place 3rd in my division with a time of 23:55 which was a minute slower than last year and by far my slowest 5K of the year. The Great New Year’s Eve 5K was by far the hilliest course I ran all year so there is definitely a feeling of accomplishment just completing this race.

All runners receive a race logoed fleece blanket and custom bib.  There were plenty of snacks after the race.  All pre and post race activities were held inside which was nice.  The race was well organized.
It was great seeing so many Team-ER members at the race. Congratulations to Team ER members George Mc Fly, Roy Miller, and Lisa Keane who also earned division awards! Congratulations to Josh Keane, Mike Williams and Jerry Lynch who completed the race.

Thank you to Kevin Christensen, Leslie Christensen, and Steve Hailer for volunteering.
Thank you to Josh Ritchie, Mickey Rzymek, Summit Athletic Running Club, and all the volunteers that put on another great race.

Congratulations to everyone that conquered the hills and crossed the finish line.